Life Without Trainers
by Virtualistic
Summary: Title pretty much says it all: Life in a civilized alternate Pokemon Universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

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Well, author's first story here. Hope you like it.

The Storm

Tangrowth took very deep breaths. He had finally outsmarted his enemy, managing to kill one of his comrade's shooters. It had taken him so long to get here, with numerous sacrifices. He wasn't about to give up now. He was so close. He could almost taste the victory.

 _It's okay. Just leap up from behind the barrel, find your opponent, and then pull the trigger_ , thought Tangrowth. _You can do this. There's just one guy left._

He waited, planning to surprise the enemy by waiting a really long time, then jumping out and catching him unprepared. He loaded his gun. A tense fifteen seconds went by, as his internal clock slowly counted down.

3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Now! Tangrowth ran to the right from behind the barrel, held up his gun and looked around for his target, when there was an ear shattering bang, and Tangrowth crumpled to the floor like a rag-doll. A red translucent screen silently popped up and filled the entire screen, with white letters neatly covering up blood and a gruesome death.

"Boom! Headshot!" Bisharp yelled in triumph from the couch, raising his hand to hi-five Gliscor and Floatzel, who were sitting on the floor.

Tangrowth, meanwhile, glared at the red kill screen. _**You died!**_ The white letters sat there, forever taunting him. It was like a little kid had announced those two words jeeringly, and he just wanted to punch it in its stupid face. But there was no kid around here that he could punch.

Scratch that. "Hah! And you were so close! I guess that I'm still the Champion of Close Combat 3!" Bisharp smirked. Tangrowth slowly turned to Bisharp, putting on his best happy "everything is fine for me" face. Of course, no one could see it through his vines, so all they saw were two very wide eyes.

"Nice, bro. I bet that you couldn't beat me if I was with Gliscor," said Floatzel, potato chip in one hand, bag in the other.

"What about we play something that doesn't involve all the blood and gore and violence in this game?" Tangrowth suggested, trying to switch into a game that he could actually win at.

Bisharp looked at him in confusion. "There are game with no violence?" Tangrowth walked over to the bookshelf, where he revealed an orderly stack of video game disks behind the books. He picked one of the game disks, which showed a cuddly yellow Pikachu giving a peace sign.

"Really? Pokémon Crossing? That's the best you could come up with?" Floatzel then walked over and picked out another disk, one which showed a variety Pokémon all staring and smiling at the camera. "What about Super Smash Poke-brawl? It's a fun game, and I don't think that there's any big violence in there," he continued, holding it up for everyone to see.

"Oh yeah, I tried that one out! It was pretty cool, but I still can't unlock that Darmanitan, though. Man, that Zen Mode was overpowered on the prequel. The graphics are decent, though," replied Bisharp, raising his hand in agreement.

"What about this?" Gliscor hovered over to the bookshelf and pull out a regular tan disk. "We never played this before. I bet it's a great game."

Silence. "What?"Gliscor asked his friends.

"Gliscor, that's an HM. Those are for moves for battling, and other stuff. In real life. You might want to put that back." Tangrowth answered, slightly pitying the confused Pokémon. But then he remembered that one time how Gliscor had beaten him with only a Smoke Grenade and a deer trap, and his remorse faded.

"Speaking of battling, when's Rotom gonna be done?" Floatzel then looked at the clock, and then paled. Tangrowth also looked at the clock and his eyes widened. "Oh no," he whispered to himself.

Bisharp sighed. "We're gonna be late picking him up, aren't we?" The company nodded simultaneously. "Great. I'll go get the guy." He mumbled to himself, something about "freaking job", "moldy socks", "burning buildings", and maybe something about an "electronic trash can", and grabbed the keys to his car from the dinner table.

[-] [-] [-]

Everyone had thought that when Rotom had gotten a job in sports, and they had all immediately assumed that he used to be an expert college athlete in hiding. He didn't deny it. It was understandable. A lot of expert college players were revealed to be prodigies, got really famous quick, and wanted to hide from the paparazzi, and run away from all the attention (Many referred it to X's Syndrome, due to similarities to the Pokemon Adventures' Trainer X). The players with alternate forms were lucky, escaping the fans using their different other appearances. The ones who didn't have any were not.

But by "job", Rotom had meant a laundry job. Yes, Rotom, formerly one of the great battlers and athletes from his college days, was hired to wash the clothing and uniforms of other players. But maybe he should have mentioned that before the company had bought extremely expensive quantities of beer, invited as much people and friends as they could cram in a house, then got really hung-over to the point where they had to be nursed of in their own rooms because of an extreme case of the flu. They didn't even know who they were nursed _by_. They were too sick to remember. They even said that Gliscor's brain was still scrambled because of that huge party.

You could imagine the expressions on their faces when he explained that he only had a very, very minor role in the whole sports shebang. Of course, he softened the blow by saying that the party was worth it and he thought "Why the heck not?" and just went with it. Then he accused Gliscor of dragging him to get beverages before he could explain. But Gliscor was too engrossed in looking at a fake painting depicting purple grapes to care.

[-] [-] [-]

Always, always, always he had to wait. Bisharp and Tangrowth were the only ones with a car, and Tangrowth had to use his to visit some old college friends. That left Bisharp to give him a route home, and he would always be late picking him up. So then that meant more waiting then one would normally have to wait.

And Rotom was restless when it came to waiting.

The restless thing was what had come with the microwave, too. Not too long ago, he had to heat up some Tot Pockets for himself because he was SO FRICKIN' HUNGRY. Anyways, Rotom could inhabit several forms, right? But every single electronic that he inhabited had a different nature. You could get the gist of it: Fire was impatient and explosive, Water was relaxed and cool, Grass was laid-back and careful, Ice was a bit uncaring and cold, and Flying was a bit talkative. It's pretty predictable.

Then Rotom wondered what would happen if he went inside a phone. It would probably give him some private wi-fi connection. _That would be cool_ , he thought.

When Bisharp had arrived thirty-seven minutes and fifty-two minutes late, Rotom had just about given up and was about to decide whether or not to knock himself out by banging his head on the metal bar in the bleachers. He wasn't feeling right, the boredom slowly affecting his sanity. Rotom decided that there would be no time for chitchat, since he couldn't wait to get onto his ride home. As soon as Bisharp walked through that door, Rotom lunged at him, _**Thief**_ ed his car keys, and ran off towards the front doors without saying a word. Bisharp was quick on his tail, yelling "Hey!", or "Stop!" before putting on a burst of speed and _**Thief**_ ing the keys back from Rotom.

Rotom grinned, bending down to catch his breath. "You got me there. I...uh...never ran track."

"What's the matter with you?" Bisharp asked between pants. He shook his head, and then thought for a bit. "Wait… didn't we tell you to forget that move a while ago? You know, because of that one time that you stole that thing?"

Rotom grinned, still panting. "I was bored. I still have fun stealing from the janitor's closet. It's very handy for pick-pocketing. And didn't we do the same about you? You know, with the whole intervention thing?"

Bisharp snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah! I forgot about that." He turned to Rotom. "How about we make a deal? If we both don't tell on each other about Thief, then we're good. But if one side swings first, it's full-on Armageddon. Deal?" He held out his hand.

Rotom thought for a second, and then shook it. "Deal." They started toward the front door.

Then two things started to happen. The first thing was thunder. It had snapped suddenly and violently outside, frightening a poor Shuckle who just happened to be outside, back into his shell. Then it started raining outside. "Great! Just my luck, and I just happened to be in a microwave."

Bisharp paused in his tracks. "Can't you just change forms? Or get out? Also, I thought you were an oven."

Rotom rolled his eyes. "Look around you, genius. We're in a closed facility. Well, except the front door. That part's my job. But pretty much everything else is locked up, stashed away so I wouldn't and couldn't wreck havoc on this place, except for the microwave. They said that I could keep it so that I wouldn't get hungry. Besides, I still got some Tot Pockets that are cooking in here. If I got out now, it might lose its power." He was also thinking about the fact that how they lied, and said he was a microwave. He wasn't an ordinary microwave! He was a super microwave oven! Rotom smiled at that thought.

"Oh." Bisharp looked around. The place where they had chased each other from was a darkly lit stadium that was structured like a crater, and the place they were at now was a marble hallway that was at least two stories high, with decorated with the photos of various teams and players. "Well, this shouldn't be a bad place to wait out the storm."

Rotom,forehead resting on his head, squinted at Bisharp as if he were stupid. "Not a bad place to… ugh!" He breathed and counted to ten, keeping his temper in check. "Bisharp. Do you see a television?"

Bisharp looked around once more. As he had guessed, there were no televisions in sight. "Oh yeah. Good Point." He thought about how this situation could turn out. Either they could take their risks, go back home, and get to play more games, or they could go out there where Rotom could potentially die in the rain. His mind was leaning towards the wiser choice.

After a long silence, he spoke. "Yeah...let's go home." Hey, it's wouldn't be his fault that Rotom chose to be a microwave today, because he could have chosen to starve rather than die.

Rotom sighed. "Thank God." He took a deep breath, then ran into the rain.

Bisharp reminded himself to take pictures as Rotom flailed in a puddle.


	2. Chapter 2

Second Chapter is here! I hope this one is better.

The Sport

Bisharp was extremely puzzled. He was playing a sandbox game on his computer when it had completely crashed. Their games never lagged, or crashed for that matter. Yet here he faced his computer desktop, completely lifeless except for the fact that it was active moments ago.

"Rotom!" He yelled. "I think my computer has a Porygon!" Porygons were a part of the gamer lingo, also known as glitches. There were three levels of Porygons: a normal Porygon, Porygon2, and PorygonZ, with their levels of endangering a game increasing with each "evolution".

Rotom came into the room, this time in his regular form.

"Ah, don't be screw with me. I'm sure that we're perfectly fine…" Rotom's voice trailed off as soon as he had noticed the blank desktop screen. He found it weird that Bisharp had a perfectly good computer and was not playing on it. "Okay, you're just probably messing with me, man. I bet your computer's fine." Rotom took over, hovering the mouse over the game icon and click it. A dark window popped up, and then quickly disappeared. "Huh. That's weird," Rotom said, frowning.

"Not screwing with you now, right?" Bisharp stared at him, an expression that clearly stated: "I told you so."

"Oh well. I got to get back to work," stated Rotom, as if nothing had happened.

"What? Aren't you going to fix it?" Bisharp demanded. He swiveled in his chair to face him, but his chair suddenly caught, and his leg was stuck painfully in between a nearby table and the chair's soft edge. He winced.

"Nope, because you had to post that one little video," replied Rotom, happily content with leaving Bisharp on his own.

"It was just a video! Nothing happened, except, well you…" Bisharp remembered, cleared his throat, trying to push his laughter down. It wasn't working.

"Yeah, yeah, I flopped around in the rain like a fish on land. As I remember, it got a hundred thousand, seven hundred- something views," Rotom finished, not happy.

Bisharp took out his phone, closed some highly questionable websites, then tapped on bookmarks and selected the infamous Gootube video. Bisharp scrolled down the page. "As of now, it has a hundred and one thousand, nine hundred and four views. Wow. It got about a thousand views in one day. Neat." He then proceeded to watch the video again. "Hah! You- you tried to get up, and then you slipped and fell on your head!" Bisharp started to chuckle.

Rotom groaned. He then decided to return to his business, which was washing his "friend's" laundry.

"Wait! Come back! I need help with this chair! It won't budge!" Bisharp struggled, desperately trying to free himself.

"Use your head," grumbled Rotom from the other room.

Bisharp tugged at his leg to move, but it was of no use. Finally, he had pulled so hard that he slipped and fell on his back, his leg coming free in the process. He took a deep breath. Well, now that he could move freely again, he...

…still couldn't move. This time, the back of the double edge ax on his head had attached itself to the wooden floor, and would have stopped any attempt for Bisharp to get free. Bisharp reminded himself to scold Tangrowth later for his proposal of getting wooden floors. Apparently he forgot that a guy completely covered in knives would vacate a part of the house.

Rotom, hearing the commotion, peer in. "You know, that's not what I meant by using your head…"

Bisharp flailed, scowling. "Shut up." He hoped that Rotom would get weird looks from everyone in public.

[-] [-] [-]

Rotom had suggested to Bisharp that he needed to workout. Bisharp had attempted to engage in a fight, but injured himself trying to harm a ghost. So he decided to motivate himself into building himself up, so that he could eventually Night Slash the guy enough to knock him out.

He drove to the nearby community center, where he wanted to see which sport was ideal for him. Running? No, since it had too much heat on summer days. Boxing? One hit from a pro, and his unconscious body would become the next infamous Gootube video. And he never wanted to give Rotom that satisfaction, so that was out.

What about basketball? Ideal, perfect, but (worst case scenario) he would probably pop the ball if he tried to defend himself, or at least make it so that it can't ever be played with again. Either way, the referee would never allow blades in a sport that needed contact to play. The same thing for soccer, and also because his strength was in his arms, not legs.

He then thought about the next sport, tennis. The fuzz on the ball protected it, so it probably wouldn't pop, and if it did, there were plenty of tennis balls left. It was a sport that didn't need contact, and a sport that let him use his arm strength. It was ideal and perfect.

So he headed over to the tennis court, and borrowed a few of the community center's tennis balls and a racket. As he went to the sidelines to watch who was playing who, he became happy that he had chosen tennis as his sport.

Because one of the really good players was a really, really hot girl.

[-] [-] [-]

Unbeknownst to Bisharp, Tangrowth was a seasoned tennis player. Seeing how he had one heck of a losing streak at video games, he wanted to test that theory out at sports. Also, he wanted to lose some of the extra weight he had gained. He kept it secret, since he was afraid that he'd never hear the end of it if they heard about his hobby.

He usually went to the community center's tennis court to practice, going at 12:00, saying that he was going to "visit some college friends". In actuality, that wasn't entirely false, since some of the people he played with were actually his old college mates.

Imagine his surprise when he came upon Bisharp gawking at someone, tennis balls in one hand and racket in the other. Tangrowth thought he was hallucinating, so he rubbed his eyes. No, Bisharp was still there. _This can't be real_ , he thought. So he slapped himself. Over and over. No, Bisharp was _still_ there. He kept slapping himself.

Bisharp, on the other hand, came to and saw Tangrowth, in full tennis attire, slapping himself over and over. _Is-is this real?_ He thought. _Nah, it can't be!_ So he punched himself in the face to make sure he wasn't imagining things. Tangrowth was still there, in a repetitive slapping motion. He got confused, and kept trying to punch himself.

Everyone normal tried to avoid the two, thinking that they were just on drugs.

[-] [-] [-]

Finally, when they became too tired to hurt themselves anymore, a friendly Audino gave them bottles of ice tea. The two had gulped their reward down greedily, and then just sat on the ground, silent.

Then Bisharp broke the tension. "So…" His mouth formed an O for three long seconds. "You, uh… you go here?"

Tangrowth thought about his answer, and then replied: "Yes. I've been going here for some time now. You know, to get rid of some weight."

"Ah." Bisharp then remembered that Tangrowth had looked more fit than usual the last couple of months. "I thought you were visiting some college friends." He frowned.

"Actually, I wasn't lying. Some old college friends asked me to come here to play. And because I'm more motivated than you, I actually thought that I need the work. See, my college buddies are over there, on the third court," he replied. He waved to them. They waved back.

"Wait. So does that mean you know her?" Bisharp asked him, suddenly interested in his social life, for seemingly no particular reason at all.

"Uh…there are three girls in our little group. You're going to have to be a little bit more specific," Tangrowth answered, a bit suspicious as to why… ah, never mind. Who knew what was happening in Bisharp's head?

Bisharp pointed. "That girl, right there." Tangrowth followed Bisharp's aim and saw who he was pointing at. "Oh…" Tangrowth then understood. He chuckled. Oh, he had never known that Bisharp was so predictable! "You mean Gardevoir. She's the-"

Bisharp shook his head rapidly. "No, you idiot, not her! _**Her**_!" He exclaimed. He pointed again.

Tangrowth was shocked. Any normal person would be attracted to Gardevoir, and he thought that Bisharp would not be an exception. Apparently, he was wrong. He didn't even bother following Bisharp's line of sight. He was too busy shaking his head in disbelief. _No way_ , he thought. _No way._

Bisharp stood up. "You know what? Forget it. I'll learn her name myself. I came here to practice, not fool around." He straightened himself, and then picked up his racket and tennis balls. "Now, let's get to business."

"Shut up. You've been watching too many action movies on NetFlicks to know what you're talking about. And by "learning her name", I think you mean "stalk her". Please don't. I don't like friends creeping on other friends. That occurs enough from where I live," Tangrowth crossed his arms.

Bisharp could not be talked out of it. "Don't worry. I won't be noticed. I'm a Dark type. A creature…" he paused for dramatic effect "…of the night."

 _Fittingly for a stalker_ , Tangrowth thought, but he kept that to himself.

[-] [-] [-]

Bisharp then learned something so important that would change his life for years, maybe decades, and possibly centuries.

He was terrible at tennis. Absolutely terrible. No. To say that Bisharp was terrible was as if you said that a Snorlax could have enough motivation to go on a diet.

The exercise that Tangrowth had him do was bounce a tennis ball off a nearby brick wall at least three times, every time above the white line. Before he knew it, Bisharp was sweating, forming a pool of smelly body liquid at the base of his feet. He had attempted to hit it over and over again, but to no avail. Whenever he would hit a ball, he would celebrate for little while, but he would stop abruptly when he would miss the ball, when his grip would slip, or when he would stop to breathe.

But to motivate himself, he would convince himself that she was watching him, and that he would try to convince her that he wasn't the helpless klutz the first impressions had brought.

Finally, the hard work paid off. "1…" The ball bounced off the wall, falling short a couple of feet away from Bisharp. He rushed forward, hitting the ball underhand with the racket. It made it, bouncing against the wall over the line a very high distance. Anymore and the ball would travel over the wall and be lost forever. He breathed in relief. "2…" One more hit! He then hit the ball after it bounced on the cement, and it was barely over the white line, but he still made it. "3!" He raised his hands to the sky, knelt down, and thanked Arceus for the first time in his life.

[-] [-] [-]

Tangrowth finished his match, coming over to the net to shake the opponent's hands. Despite being distracted when he looked over at Bisharp to check out how he was doing, he and his teammate still won. "Good game. Good game," he said to each player, shook their hands, and then walked over to Bisharp to see how he was doing.

Well, at least he had planned to, when his teammate, Meloetta, interrupted his train of thought. "Is that your friend?" She asked, pointing to a grateful and kneeling Bisharp, who was currently staring at the clouds. He took out his phone snapped a photo. "He might be. Why?" He asked.

"He, uh…he was staring at me earlier. He comes onto me as a bit weird. Can you tell him to stop gawking at me later, since he does that a lot? Thanks!" Meloetta cheerfully requested, and then ran into the shade to fetch her water bottle. She didn't notice Tangrowth's surprised expression, and the fact that he had frozen like a Zen Mode Darmanitan.

 _No way_ , he thought, with his phone still aimed at Bisharp, although he was no longer taking pictures.

 _No frickin' way._

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To explain, Gootube is the Youtube equivalent, and Netflicks is the NetFlix equivalent.

Well, now we join Bisharp for this epic tale of trying to win Meloetta over. Good Luck, Bisharp!


End file.
